That I would see only my mother, and nothing of my father at all—that the security of my Leihani roots would unravel, and I’d know the islanders were always right, that I’d never truly belonged on the islands?
Timid, I enclosed my fingers around the cold metal handle, lifting it out. The room in the little glass window rotated. The wall. The fireplace. The bed rails. The edge of the curtain. Me.
I stared.
My first instinct was of hollow disappointment.
The stranger’s face that gazed back was neither friendly nor unpleasant. Just unfamiliar. I forced myself to not immediatelylay the mirror face down. Intimate details began to announce themselves. My thick hair rested on my crown in soft, dark waves that reminded me of Nola. My father gazed at me in the vivid darkness of my eyes, so liquid black they echoed every source of light, the reflection of a lighthouse glinting over dark water. The high crests of my cheeks glowed under my sun-kissed skin, and even without the wrinkles, I felt a sudden whiplash of surprise at an echo of my Nani’s face.
But the rest of me was foreign.
Almond-shaped eyes. An angular chin, a celestial nose. My upper lip curved like the stretched wings of a seabird in flight. Even my lashes weren’t Leihaniian; most islanders sported lashes that stood high and tall, splaying thick over their eyelids like a woman’s handheld fan. My lashes curled heavily out to the side, so long I could see them silhouetted over my cheek as I turned my head left and right.
I gazed until the reflection no longer bothered me, and then I gazed longer, until the mirrored image was less like a marble statue and more like a living person, all the details in the sculpture fleshed out.
And then I put it away, deciding I would only retrieve it again if Selena asked me to.
32
“What happened?” Selena asked as she watched me hobble out of my room and to the table, a stack of heavy texts under her arm. “Is it from your transition? You were walking well enough when I left you yesterday.”
“You didn’t see me walk yesterday,” I said. "I sat at the table the entire visit."
Her mouth parted, then closed. “Were you injured from your transition the morning before? Why didn’t you mention it?”
Unwittingly, my eyes flashed at the door to the worthless traitor who slept on the other side of my wall.
Selena’s gaze followed, recognition sharpening her face. The books landed on my table with a hard thump.
I glanced at them in curiosity, making out the wordsEconomy of a KingdomandThe Growing Wealth of a Working Governmentbefore I realized she’d crossed the room. Selena rapped her knuckles over Kye’s door, then stood back with hands on her hips, waiting.
I didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to hear his voice. Smell his scent. I wasn’t finished working through my anger, and I didn’t trust the things his proximity did to my body.
“Selena,” I hissed.
But she waved me away behind her back.
His door opened. A tall figure slanted into the door jamb, his wry grin clear even across the hall to where I sat at the table.
My brows thrust together. Grabbing one of Selena’s leather-bound tomes, I swerved in my chair, determined not to even look at him.
“Hello, Lady Selena. Come for a friendly chat?” Kye asked, cool and collected over his threshold. Hating myself, I darted a glance toward them.
The tension settled between Selena’s shoulders, and she expelled a soft breath as she crossed her arms. I couldn’t see her face, but I had the impression she was looking him up and down, taking him in with slow, meticulous absorbency.
“This is out of hand,” she said. “Maren has a limp.”
His eyes shifted through my open door to me. “Aw. The island witch is hurt. Need me to kiss it better for you?”
I felt myself go rigid; my teeth clenched as I glared back.
He chuckled, stepping past Selena and inviting himself into my apartment, where he dropped into the chair opposite me and patted his knee. “Go on and set it up here.” His smile widened cruelly. “I don’t mind playing doctor.”
Selena followed, arms still crossed. “Where is Thaan?”
“In the advisory offices,” he answered, staring darkly at me.
“And you had a meeting with him this morning?”
